Page 27 of Fish in a Barrel
“What happened next,” Jackson said softly, “was that the bad guys found a disabled man on the sidewalk and assumed he was homeless. They accused him of the crime, beat him, and threw him in jail. And the lawyer I work for caught the case, and to keep him out of jail, we need?”
“Oh dear God.” Cody closed his eyes and swallowed. “Disabled?”
“Yes. He’d made a break from his care home to prove he could go to the park himself—”
“Zee? He’s always trying to tell Arturo he can do more than Arturo lets him do.”
Oh Jesus. Good guy. Jackson had called him a good guy, and good guys knew their community. “Yeah. Ezekiel Halliday. They broke his pelvis and his jaw. He can’t walk anymore, and the DA wants to put him back in jail.”
Cody wiped his eyes with palms that were grime encrusted and hard-caked with the streets. “Fucking Jesus,” he muttered. “Fucking assholes. I’ll fucking kill them—”
“No you won’t.” Jackson’s voice came out harder than he intended it to, and he made himself hush it down a little. “You’ll come with me, and my partner will bail us out, and we’ll clean you up, and you’ll testify tomorrow, and then we’ll get you to rehab with a twenty-four-seven protective detail if I’m the one standing by your door. You’re a good man, Cody, and you got screwed. But you’re going to want redemption, because youarea good man, and the only way out is through.”
Cody took a long, dark, shuddery breath, and Jackson took a risk and squeezed his shoulder.
“Do you hear me?” he asked, to make sure.
“Yeah,” Cody whispered. “I hear you. Fucking Jesus. They beat up Zee. I’ll never forgive those fuckers. Or the force. Or the world.”
“Let’s work on getting Zee free and clear,” Jackson murmured. “And then we’ll work on the world.”
“Yeah,” Henry said in his ear. “Because we’re still missing a big piece of the puzzle. You know that, right?”
“Roger that,” Jackson murmured, not wanting to talk anymore. In a wave, some of the adrenaline rush of getting herded on the bus and realizing where he was and what was happening receded, leaving him shaking and miserable. The smell hit him then—all of it, from people stuck in the filthy mud to unwashed bodies, cigarette smoke, and urine. Old alcohol, spilled and allowed to fester.
Cody Gabriel sobbed quietly next to him, and Jackson’s heart hurt and his head hurt, and he was trying not to have a giant panic attack as the bus driver earned his overtime piloting this human shipwreck through the storm.
But he was going to have to face it, he knew. They wereallgoing to have to think about it. Because those cops had told Gabriel to do what he’d done for a reason, and Jackson honestly didn’t think they were smart enough to drive that truck. What was the purpose here behind relocating the homeless camps, behind vilifying the vulnerable populations in the press? Somebody with money and resources and a plan. But who? And what was the plan?
All Jackson knew was that getting Ezekiel Halliday off on trumped-up charges had just gotten way more complicated than they’d first assumed.
The Home Fires
ELLERY’S CELLphone rang as he was letting himself back into the house. He shook the rain out of his hair and pulled the phone out of his back pocket on the way to the bedroom, determined to change back into his pajamas as soon as possible. He was cold, he was wet, he was frustrated, and he missed his damned boyfriend. He was going to need those flannel pj’s ASAP.
And then he saw it was Henry and his heart almost stopped.
“Is he okay?”
They were the first words out of his mouth, and he wished he could pull them back. It wasn’t fair to freak out all over Henry just because he remembered a dark, foggy night in mid-November when Jacksonhadn’tbeen okay.
“Yeah,” Henry said, with enough of a pause in his voice to make Ellery’s hackles rise. “He’s fine. I’m in contact with him. He’s fine.”
“Wait. What do youmeanyou’re in contact with him? Isn’t the whole point of having backup not being alone?”
“Well, yes, Ellery, but sometimes backup means I’m in the back, trying to catch up! Now I told him I’d be in his ear in short order, so you need to listen to everything I say. Pen and paper?”
“Check,” Ellery said, grabbing some from the odds and ends drawer in the kitchen and leaning over the counter thruway to write. In the background, he could hear the thump-whump of windshield wipers and the hum of a car in traffic. Oh God. Henry was calling him from the road, and Jackson wasn’t there.Focus, goddammit!
“What do I need to know?”
“The actual perpetrator is named Cody Gabriel. He’s an undercover policeman. Jackson and I think he wasorderedto cause mayhem in the park—blackmailed, maybe, because he was tasting the candy he was supposed to get off the streets. You follow?”
Ellery had to blink because even now, corruption still stunned him. “Werewolf fucking Jesus,” he breathed.
“Yes, you’re following,” Henry said on a sigh of relief. “Okay, so the cops who were supposed to arrest him were your guys—the witnesses in the Ezekiel Halliday case—and when shit was going down, one of them was going to waste a civilian and his dog. Gabriel cut Annette Frazier as a diversion. Everybody looked at her, the dog and the civilian didn’t get shot, and Gabriel made his escape. Smart thing to do if he didn’t want anybody to die, but a hard choice. It fucked him up. He’s been on the streets for a month. We’ve found him.”
“You just saidwe,” Ellery muttered, “but you’re telling me—”